WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s new pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency told lawmakers on Wednesday he does not believe climate change is a major crisis, and would continue to undo Obama-era emission limits if confirmed.

Campaign rhetoric strongly suggested that the Trump administration would redress the Obama administrationâ€™s insane attempts to regulate every aspect of society in a futile attempt to control nature and climate. President Trump withdrew from the Paris Accord, initiated repeal of the Clean Power Plan, sought a reasonable replacement for the plan, and turned off the regulatory fire hose. Great start!But two years in, it is clear that the administration has stalled on dealing with the most significant part of Obama regulatory overreach: the 2009 Endangerment Finding â€“ the Environmental Protection Agencyâ€™s declaration that plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases...

The Trump administration has targeted an Obama-era regulation credited with helping dramatically reduce toxic mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants, saying the benefits to human health and the environment may not be worth the cost of the regulation. The 2011 Obama administration rule, called the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, led to what electric utilities say was an $18 billion clean-up of mercury and other toxins from the smokestacks of coal-fired power plants. Overall, environmental groups say, federal and state efforts have cut mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants by 85 percent in roughly the last decade. Mercury causes brain...

The dusky gopher frog is a critter that can be found in certain areas of Mississippi — and nowhere else. Yet the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided to “protect” the dusky gopher frog by using the Endangered Species Act to designate a 1,500-acre tract of private forestry land in Louisiana as “critical habitat necessary for the species’ survival,” even though the land is not inhabited by the frog, and is in fact unsuitable for the species. Naturally, the owners objected — the economic hit would have been up to $34 million, though the FWS refused to take that into...

It all started when California farmer John Duarte plowed a wheat field in Tehama County, about two hours north of Sacramento, and wound up paying a $1.1 million fine to the federal government for his efforts. On Tuesday, Duarte, who was embraced by conservatives nationwide as a victim of government over-reach, got vindication of sorts. In a victory for farmers and land developers throughout the West, the Trump administration announced a broad rollback of rules designed to protect wetlands and other small bodies of water. The decision means regulations put in place in 2015 by the Obama administration will fall...

The Environmental Protection Agency moved Tuesday to scale back the Obama-era Waters of the United States rule, a policy embraced by environmentalists but denounced by critics as a power grab that placed even potholes and puddles under federal control. In the Trump administration’s latest strike on federal regulations, the EPA proposed redefining “waters of the United States” in a way that would draw a clear line between navigable waterways under federal versus state control. “Our proposal would replace the Obama EPA’s 2015 definition with one that respects the limits of the Clean Water Act and provides states and landowners the...

The Trump administration is poised to withdraw federal protections for countless waterways and wetlands across the country, making good on President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to weaken landmark water rules long resented by some developers, farmers and oil, gas and mining executives. Environmental groups said the Trump administration proposal would have a sweeping impact on how the country safeguards the nation’s waterways, scaling back not just a 2015 Obama administration interpretation of federal jurisdiction over the nation’s waters, but also how federal agencies enforce the 1972 Clean Water Act. […] The changes would affect what waterways and wetlands fall under...

The Environmental Protection Agency acted again Thursday to ease rules on the sagging U.S. coal industry, this time scaling back what would have been a tough control on climate-changing emissions from any new coal plants. The latest Trump administration targeting of legacy Obama administration efforts to slow climate change comes in the wake of multiplying warnings from the agency’s scientists and others about the accelerating pace of global warming. In a ceremony Thursday at the agency, acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler signed a proposal to dismantle a 2015 rule that any new coal power plants include cutting-edge techniques to capture...

We knew (or at least feared) that this was coming, but Friday saw the finalization of the new biofuels – specifically ethanol – blending requirements for 2019 and 2020. And true to the promises that President Trump made to Iowa politicians, we did not see any significant reductions in the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) mandates. In fact, they went up, much the same as under Obama’s EPA. (EPA website)

More than a year after the US Environmental Protection Agency took down information on climate change from its website for an “update”, it now seems uncertain whether it will ever reappear. In April last year, the EPA replaced its online climate change section with a holding page that said the content was being updated to “reflect the agency’s new direction under President Donald Trump”. Information previously found at epa.gov/climatechange made it clear that human activity was warming the planet, resulting in harm to Americans’ health as well as crucial ecosystems on which humans depend. The “update” page has now given...

The Trump administration announced a major policy change in an effort to win back farm country, allowing the year-round sale of a higher concentration of ethanol. Coinciding with a campaign stop in Iowa, President Trump announced the lifting of the ban of E15 during summer months, a significant win for the corn and ethanol industries. Up until now, E15 cannot be sold during the summer because of smog concerns. Ethanol producers saw their share prices skyrocket on the news. The decision comes after roughly 18 months of damaging policies to the agricultural industry. Former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt became public...

President Trump chalked up his announcement on boosting ethanol for farmers in Iowa to his record of "promises made, promises kept," while speaking in Iowa Tuesday night. "I made that promise to you during the campaign," Trump said. "I made that promise to you during the primaries. Promises made, promises kept." "We're going with E15 year-round," Trump said early in his speech, admitting that the full announcement would come later in his remarks. The plan would relax Environmental Protection Agency rules that restrict the sale of 15-percent ethanol fuel blends to eight months of the year. The EPA waiver for...

The White House on Monday rolled out a new plan that would allow higher blends of ethanol in vehicle fuels, amid concerns that the change could lead to more air pollution. The administration’s memo calls to extend the sale of E15 -- consisting of 15 percent of ethanol blended into gasoline -- year round. The fuel was blocked between June 1 and Sept. 15, as science shows burning ethanol in warmer temperature leads to heightened ground-level ozone pollution and smog. A senior White House official said the plan was part of President Trump’s free market plan. “This action is basically...

In the middle of directing the difficult task of transferring the historically important records of the Obama administration into the National Archives, the archivist in charge, David Ferriero, ran into a serious problem: A lot of key records are missing. A first-rate librarian, Ferriero has been driving a much-needed digital overhaul and expansion of the National Archives over the nine years of his appointment. This will greatly improve the ability of digital search locally and remotely, as well as accessing the files themselves. To support this effort, in 2014 President Obama signed the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments. For...

President Donald Trump is keeping a campaign promise to reduce the size of the Environmental Protection Agency, according to the agency's recent employment numbers. On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump spoke about dismantling the EPA, saying, "We are going to get rid of it in almost every form. We’re going to have little tidbits left but we’re going to take a tremendous amount out." Records show that in the first 18 months of the Trump administration, over 1,600 workers left the EPA and less than 400 were hired. This is an 8 percent decrease in the agency's employment size,...

I was going to suggest that the most snuggly, feel-good story of recent days was the latest ratings for CNN, which have fallen more than 20 percent over the last year and continued to fall over the summer, such that it now ranks behind the Discovery Channel and HGTV. Makes sense: why tune in to CNN for manure if you can get better manure for your private garden from HGTV? But this story is much more snuggly feel-good inducing: EPA lost more than 1,500 workers in first 18 months of Trump administration: report The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reportedly lost...

It's coal people like miner Steve Knotts, 62, who make West Virginia Trump Country. So it was no surprise that President Donald Trump picked the state to announce his plan rolling back Obama-era pollution controls on coal-fired power plants. Trump left one thing out of his remarks, though: northern West Virginia coal country will be ground zero for increased deaths and illnesses from the rollback on regulation of harmful emission from the nation's coal power plants. An analysis done by his own Environmental Protection Agency concludes that the plan would lead to a greater number of people here dying prematurely,...

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) internal watchdog is auditing how the agency deals with issues of scientific integrity. In a notice released Friday, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) said it would launch research into how the EPA implements and adheres to its scientific integrity policy. The audit was launched voluntarily by the office, so it is not connected to a specific request from a lawmaker or complaint. But critics of the Trump administration have nonetheless criticized the agency for what they see as attempts to undermine science at the EPA, including downplaying the harms from climate change and...

BOISE, Idaho — The U.S. government said an Idaho family is to blame for any injuries it alleges a boy received after he was doused with cyanide by a predator-killing trap that a federal worker mistakenly placed near their home. Any injuries were caused by the negligence of the parents and child, the U.S. Department of Justice said in documents filed Monday in U.S. District Court, and asked for the family's lawsuit to be dismissed. Mark and Theresa Mansfield of Pocatello sued in June seeking more than $75,000 in damages and more than $75,000 for pain and suffering. They say...

Cruel: A spokesman for a prominent Native American tribe is blasting uber-Left-wing politicians in deep blue coastal states for using onerous EPA regulations to deny his people the opportunity to coal, gas, and other forms of energy. The Daily Caller reports that officials in a small number of coastal states led by Washington are essentially denying Crow Tribal members the opportunity to earn a much better living. CJ Stewart, a Crow Tribal member and co-founder of the National Tribe Energy Association, told the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Thursday that his people are dependent on producing energy to...